One early international junket that President(!) Trump will be expected to attend is the G20 summit in Hamburg on 7-8 July 2017.

Angela Merkel has just published the draft agenda, with a cool knot logo.

The image is a reef knot, of multicoloured strands – one rope in the red-yellow-black of Germany, the other in random colours presumably for the rest of the world. The knot symbolizes interdependence. But Berlin is a long way from the sea or the Alps, and nobody told the Chancellery that the reef knot is weak. Pull hard, and it’s quite likely to come undone.

The reef knot logo is a parapraxis, a Fehlleistung (mis-performance), a Freudian slip knot. (What a pity that Ernest Jones translated Freud’s elegant and lucid German coinage into poncey fake Greek bafflegab, and it stuck.) It unintentionally reflects globalisation today only too well, with nationalist rebellions against interdependence all over the place, not just in Britain with Brexit and the USA with Trump. The ties woven since 1945 are slipping dangerously. Continue Reading…

“Repeal and replace” is one of the few clear policy goals that unites President-elect Trump’s campaign with congressional Republicans. Something large is going to happen. Some triumphant Republican “repeal” seems foreordained…

What will Republicans actually do to replace the ACA? That is another matter. Seldom has a political party combined such comprehensive control over the practical levers of government with such limited public mandate for its policy agenda. President-elect Trump lost the popular vote by more than 2.5 million votes. His net favorability rating stands at minus six, which is about forty-nine points below the net favorability rating of President-elect Barack Obama eight years ago. According to the website yougov.com, only 35 percent of Americans believe Trump has the temperament for the presidency. Fifty-nine percent“think he is not even somewhat qualified for the job.”

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Some commentators suggest that Republican efforts to bend the health care system to their liking resemble the dog who chased the car and finally caught it on November 8. But that analogy isn’t quite right. Perhaps the better analogy is the bear who chased a car: the bear will likely regret catching up, but the car won’t escape unscathed, either.

First, think before you wish for ‘job-killing, economy-crushing regulations’ to be swept away. Fire and housing codes would have saved 33 36 young lives here if they had been enforced; an enormous fire in Cambridge the same day killed no-one, partly because there weren’t as many people crammed into one space, partly because the eleven old buildings involved met codes, or close, and had many ways out, partly because they weren’t full of paint thinner and the kind of flammables artists use at work.

Second, primary responsibility obviously rests with the owner and the building manager. But this was an implementation/management failure, not a policy failure: Oakland’s codes are entirely adequate to prevent this kind of thing, but they weren’t effectively used, whether because California has crippled its local governments financially by Proposition 13 and other short-sighted tax choices, or because the enforcement function in Oakland was incompetent or feckless.

The inspector who visited this deathtrap on Nov. 18 was “unable to gain access” and apparently the matter dropped there. It’s possible California needs some new legislation. For example, I have no trouble with the idea that the owner of anything larger than a single-family house has a duty to make himself (or a subordinate or attorney with the keys) reachable for purposes of inspection access within 48 hours of any safety-related complaint the city chooses to act on. If he doesn’t open the building for the inspector, the inspector can admit himself, by force if necessary, during business hours.

Berkeley had a similar episode a decade ago, which unfolded quite differently because the city kept after the landlord. No fire, no deaths, no tragedy…

…but a bunch of artists out on the street. Third, the housing/workspace crisis for artists in happening cities is real (not to mention for teachers, students, civil servants, and every kind of poor person). The resistance to cleaning up the Drayage building came from the tenants whose safety was the point of the enforcement action, and they correctly understood that they had no workable options; things are worse for artists now. Running around rousting artists from improvised housing and homeless from tent camps won’t fix this. Unless we make it easier to build, confront NIMBYism, and shovel out more housing supply–yes, including subsidized live-work spaces–we will have nightmares like the Ghost Ship and homeless camps under freeway ramps. People who can’t afford housing, whose price (in the Bay Area, and other places) has sailed into a completely unattainable stratosphere, will live somewhere, and that somewhere will be inhumane, intolerable, and dangerous in so many ways.

There could be more delays to Massachusetts marijuana law. New Massachusetts pot law needs minor fixes, not big delays. Massachusetts is banking on the pot industry. MassachusettsTreasurerDeb Goldberg on marijuana legalization. New Hamphire cops worry about impact of Massachusetts pot law.

What does a TrumpAdministration mean for legal marijuana? Trump adds another marijuana opponent to his Cabinet. Obama says marijuana should be treated like “cigarettes or alcohol.” Former Washington Attorney General says “it’s possible” feds will raid pot shops when Trump takes power. County attorney in Arizona calls on Trump to end medical marijuana “charade.” Activists fear a battle ahead with Sessions.

Canadian public will have to wait for much-anticipated task force report on legalizing pot. Marijuana advocates skeptical about Canada‘s path to legal pot. Trudeau’s lead on legalizing marijuana lobbied during cash-for-access fundraiser. Canadian recreational pot sales could reach $6 billion by 2021. Eight burning questions about the coming Canadian pot report. Planning to grow legal pot in Canada? Check real estate rules first. Canadianflower growers turn to weed ahead of pot legalization. Canada may face marijuana shortage when it’s legalized. Alberta to be home to ‘world’s largest’ legal marijuana grow operation. Canada‘s reefer madness reaches new heights as rivals merge.

Vice: The challenges facing legal weed in America. RAND: The legal marijuana middle ground. Is transporting marijuana legally between states still a pipe dream? Cannabis real estate company hits Wall Street with a whimper in downsized IPO.

As of today, no one quite knows what will happen to ACA. Republicans control the required levers to massively repeal or replace ACA. They also have the power to massively over-reach and do themselves profound political damage through over-reach that damages millions of people’s lives or that damages the overall health care delivery system. Trump’s unexpected victory provides a remarkable natural experiment that illuminates bedrock issues: The power and accuracy of media messages in public policy, path dependence as a barrier to radical policy change, tensions between interest-group and partisan politics, fiscal federalism and the relationship between states and the federal government, the politics of race and class in redistributive programs. It’s all there in the politics of health reform.

Post-November 8 is a great time to explore these questions and to look back on what some of the best health policy scholars, political scientists, and sociologists have had to say about the enactment, implementation, and political reception facing health reform. The Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law has therefore opened some of its best pieces on ACA for public access. I recommend this to anyone serious about understanding the rise and potential fall of the Affordable Care Act, on which rides the health and well-being of many millions of people. (FYI: I am JHPPL’s social media editor.)

We are watching history in action. It isn’t pretty to watch. We can at least witness the process with analytic rigor informed by a sound understanding of what has come before.

Here it is, 7 years after the arrest of Professor Gates, and the Cambridge Police have done it again. I will not tar the whole department with the brush properly applied to Det. Sgt. Ahern, (and a breath test notwithstanding, I’m betting he had been bending his elbow at the tavern across the street just before this act of testosterone-fueled lunacy) but for his acquiescence, the Commissioner deserves a thrashing. Continue Reading…